Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel
IX.
Olga was very surprised when Falk entered.
“Yes, you see, dear Olga, what the devil led you to live above a restaurant? One can come to you at any time of day or night without claiming the help of a night watchman. And below the detectives can set up their camp. He, he—I have a little persecution mania. Suddenly I believe I see a police agent in every person.”
He laughed nervously.
“I even believe that I asked some person who asked if he had the honor to speak with Falk, just think: the great honor to speak with Falk…”
He suddenly stopped.
“You, Olga, I am probably really sick. Just think, I asked the person if he wanted to arrest me…”
Olga laughed, but then looked at Falk worriedly.
“You are really sick. Is your chest bothering you again?” Falk thought deeply.
“I was namely with Czerski,” he said suddenly and looked at her. “What? You with Czerski?”
“That surprises you? He, he, but that was your fault. Didn’t you perhaps believe that I sent the money to get rid of him? And if you believed that, he had to believe it even more. And so I went to him to ask him to go to Isa immediately to free me from the lie… By the way, we parted as friends. The whole time we philosophized very beautifully about the overman, and there I found out that you and he are the only overmen, perhaps there are a few others, a few medics with principles…”
“Did you come to mock me?” She looked at him sadly. “By the way, I didn’t believe for a second that you could send the money out of cowardice, and I thank you also for the honor that you hold me for an overman. I don’t need it, I just want to remain human, simply human.”
“Wonderful answer! Splendid answer. No, really seriously. That is what I should have become too.”
“I didn’t say ‘become,’ but ‘remain.'” He looked at her seriously.
“Yes you—you and Czerski. But I, I would first have to become human to remain human.”
Olga looked at him almost angrily.
“I find your self-accusations and your morbid pleasure in humiliating and slandering yourself quite unbearable. It almost seems to me as if the love brought to you is repugnant to you, and as if you wanted to destroy it in this way.”
“Yes, that is what I want,” he suddenly cried out raging. “That is what I want! You prevent me from being what I am, a scoundrel, a rascal, ha, ha, ha… no, to thunder no scoundrel! Ridiculous! You prevent me from being evil, yes, great in evil, to create through evil. I despise your creating goodness because it always takes the path into evil. Yes, now I feel for the first time how contemptible your goodness and your love is. And I stupid donkey, I run around to all of you and beg you for forgiveness. Why?”
He fell exhausted and stared at Olga.
“Why do you look at me so startled? I am furious at myself because I talked too much with Czerski. I bowed before this person… But it only came in the fever… If only I get well first: I have thought up a hellish plan… You will see, the whole plan is thought out and worked out to the finest detail… I swear to you that I will ruin the whole mining association, he, he, it is a company of twenty million, in ten months at the latest…”
He suddenly started triumphantly.
“I will do that together with Czerski… We are now friends. He is the only person with whom I can do it together. He has suffered horribly. I examined whether he had not got white hair. One gets that namely when one suffers so much. But do you know, Olga, go down and get a bottle of cognac. I am a little sick. Go, go, here you have money; I want to speak with you very long. I want to begin a new life. I will follow Czerski. Czerski is a Christ. He is the purest person—yes, he and you…”
Falk fell into the sofa and brooded. Olga got the cognac. He drank a full glass.
“Strange how that helps. It is really no imagination, but on my organism cognac works enormously stimulating. I probably cannot die at all, for I overcome every illness with cognac.”
He was silent and sank into thoughts.
“You, Olga, you have probably tormented yourself very much because of me?” he asked suddenly.
She did not answer.
“It is bad of me that I keep you near me, but I cannot do without your love, it seems to me as if I would become a new person in your presence.”
“And yet you seek to destroy this love.”
“No, no, you are mistaken,” he said eagerly. “I only get such fear that I could lose it and then I become so desperate—yes, really desperate,” he added slowly.
They were silent for a long time.
He rose in sudden unrest and walked back and forth.
“Tell me, Olga, have you ever had the feeling that the world is going under? I namely have the feeling suddenly now. It is not the first time. It comes often, and more and more often, yes—perhaps since a year. Hm, it is possible that it is only a ridiculous suggestion from somewhere… I have seen too much misery in the last time. One can namely really get that through suggestion, I think. It lies in the environment, in the air, one reads it off some face… When I was still a student, several of us often came together… we were probably six people… There were hideous debaucheries. We also drank very much. Then suddenly a person got terrible cramps in the middle of drinking. Now imagine: there was a fellow, a jurist, strong as a spruce in the primeval forest. But he sees the one writhing in cramps there, he gets a mad fright and falls into cramps himself… A third begins to scream as in death agony, not like a human, no, they were horrible, animal screams that tore the nerves out of the body… I don’t know what would have happened if the people from the whole house had not run together…”
Falk dried the sweat from his forehead and became pale as a corpse.
“Listen Olga. I must tell you this. It torments me, and I have no person to whom I can say this… I actually don’t know why I should tell you this…”
He looked at her silently. She took his hand. He seemed to suffer horribly.
“Yes, tell me, perhaps it will relieve you.” Falk looked at the floor.
“I namely killed a child…” “What?” Olga started.
“Yes, a girl of sixteen years… I didn’t kill her directly, but—” he looked Olga fixedly in the eyes.
A long pause.
“Tell, tell everything!” Olga collected herself. “You won’t despise me?”
“No!” she said harshly.
“For a whole week I worked on the destruction of this white, pure soul.”
“And you were married?” “Yes.”
He was silent and looked at her fixedly again. Sweat broke out on his forehead again, and his lips trembled.
“It was a thunderstorm, she was alone at home, and then she gave herself to me. I don’t know much more then. I only know that I went home in unspeakable torment, that lightning struck around me, I remember a willow that suddenly stood in flames and fell apart, then I became sick and lay unconscious for a long time.”
“Then you probably did it in the fever?” “No! I got the fever afterwards.”
“And she?”
“She drowned herself the next day when I told her that I was married.”
A long, painful pause ensued.
“I didn’t think much about it. I remember that for a whole year after her death I thought very little about it. But suddenly, when I came here from Paris a year ago, I met her father on the street. He was probably driving with his sick wife to the spa. They were also at the spa then, and there I seduced little Marit…”
Falk got an attack of tormenting fear, his breath stopped and the fever began to rage in him again. He spoke quickly and softly.
“I met him suddenly on the street, then I got a jerk as if struck by lightning. I stood as if nailed, I could not have moved if the sky should collapse over me…”
He laughed hoarsely.
“Yes, naturally, then even less… But I saw the old man, he stared at me as if he wanted to kill me with his gaze. I wanted to look away, but I could not… He had become quite white…”
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